CFL already feeling schedule disruptions that could be omen for NFL

The NFL hit its first roadblock with covid-19 when it was forced to alter its draft.

The draft will happen, but players and fans must watch from afar as it is conducted virtually April 23-25.

Though organized team activities and minicamps also could face disruption, the most critical parts of the NFL season, training camp and the regular season, haven’t been affected. Yet.

The same can’t be said for the NFL’s neighbor to the north. Canadian Football League camps were scheduled to begin May 17 until commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced March 30 training camp would be delayed.

While the NFL won’t necessarily follow the CFL’s lead, it might be looking out of the corner of its collective eye.

“We are all on different timelines in our respective calendars,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement to the Tribune-Review, “but we have been monitoring developments in the CFL and other sports.”

Meanwhile, players are dealing with the fallout. Tommie Campbell, an Aliquippa and Cal (Pa.) product who signed with the Toronto Argonauts in the offseason, said the rapid escalation of the pandemic blindsided him.

“When it first came out … I didn’t know anything about the virus situation,” the fifth-year CFL veteran said. “To see it spread all across the world, it kind of caught everybody off-guard. It’s just chaotic right now.”

CFL players, like other athletes, are doing their best to try to keep up with workouts. Campbell, who said he barely leaves his Aliquippa home, has been doing a lot of sit-ups and push-ups but is making sure not to overwork his body. He said he doesn’t want to peak too soon in his conditioning given the uncertainty of when the season will start.

Clarion grad Julian Howsare, a third-year defensive lineman with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, said he is fortunate to have a gym at his apartment complex in Philadelphia. He also tries to run regularly.

But, when the time comes, Howsare said he hopes CFL players will get the benefit of a full training camp. CFL camps, even under normal circumstances, are relatively short. This season, for example, had camp started on time, it would have been less than a month before the first regular-season games (June 11).

NFL teams, by contrast, would start camp in mid-July, and the first regular-season game isn’t until Sept. 10. Now, it isn’t far-fetched to think the NFL could face a CFL-like camp schedule if the pandemic persists. A shorter camp, Howsare said, means every moment counts.

“Training camp is very crucial,” he said. “You can train and do all those things and try to mimic game speed. But running around out there practicing, you can’t get a better warm-up than that. You get in game shape, get your lungs back and get the rust off.”

Lorenzo Jerome, a former St. Francis (Pa.) standout who is heading into his second season with the Calgary Stampeders, concurred.

“You really need that time to get adjusted to your teammates,” Jerome said from his native Florida. “There are a lot of ins and outs. We can’t just go out there and bang. Just building that chemistry, that’s where you win.”

Then there is the matter of the regular season. Campbell, Howsare and Jerome believe the CFL will play an abbreviated schedule, and that notion might have moved a little closer to reality last week.

Toronto, on March 31, banned all “city-led and permitted” events through June 30. The city’s ban does not specifically apply to pro sports, but, according to The Sporting News, a spokesman for Toronto Mayor John Tory said the province of Ontario “banned organized public events and social gatherings of more than (five) people.”

That affects the Argonauts’ June 20 home game.

On Friday, the city of Calgary banned all public events, including games for the Stampeders and the NHL’s Flames, through June 30. The Stampeders were to play their first two regular-season games (June 12 and 18) at home.

To add another plot twist, nearly half of all CFL players are Americans, many of whom returned home after the completion of the 2019 season. At the moment, the U.S.-Canada border is closed, so getting players back in an expeditious manner also could be an issue.

No solutions are set in stone, and during an online fan Q&A on March 27, Ambrosie said the league is doing “a whole range of scenario planning.”

“We are in the hands of our public health officials, the advice they are providing governments and the directives those governments are issuing to us all,” CFL spokesman Lucas Barrett said in a statement to the Tribune-Review, “and we acknowledge their timetable will be dictated by the virus itself.

“We will make further decisions when we can and share them with our fans and the public as soon as possible.”

When (and if) CFL teams get the green light, there remains the question of whether fans will be present at games. The fan-less approach has been tried in the U.S. with horse racing, mixed martial arts and a few other sports.

That is a prospect none of the players seems too keen on facing.

“I would want the fans to be there,” Howsare said. “In Hamilton, we have great fans. We sell out all our games, and we have a great advantage there.

“When it’s safe for the fans, and everyone’s family can come to the games, that’s when it would be best to start.”

Said Campbell: “Obviously, health is a concern. But football wouldn’t be the game of football without the fans. A shortened season, I really wouldn’t like it, but it comes down to where everybody is healthy and safe. That’s the main thing.”

Until those decisions are made, players — and leagues — on both sides of the border will push on and prepare as best they can.

“Just control what you can control. That’s what I always learned,” Jerome said. “All they said was stay in shape, do what you have to do, wash your hands and stay safe. That’s all you really can do.”